Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		4.0

The Babadook Blu-ray Movie Review

Death be not scared.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 19, 2015

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Thanatologists and other similarly inclined academics, as well as a perhaps rather unexpectedly large swath of the general population, will no doubt recognize the above list as the famous model developed by psychiatric researcher Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her now iconic book On Death and Dying, a study which sought to elucidate the five stages of grief. The Babadook, an often brilliantly effective horror film, might add a symptom or two to that catalog, for while the film is on its surface a relatively rote depiction of a disturbed mother and her equally unbalanced child, underneath the roiling facade of the film is a rather potent exploration for what it means to continue existing in the wake of a tragic demise. The fact that The Babadook manages to convey such emotional weight while remaining fairly discursive about its subtext is just one of the ways this “little” Australian film neatly reworks horror tropes into something a bit more substantive than this genre typically tends to proffer.

In most cases, getting shocked out of a sound sleep by your kid who’s just had a nightmare might be an unappetizing prospect, but for Amelia Vannick (Essie Davis), it’s actually some welcome relief, as she herself suffers from a recurring nightmare, one that in fact begins this film in what turns out to be The Babadook’s evocative if somewhat discursive modus operandi. It’s obvious that something horrible happened to Amelia in a car, but as with so much else in this film, writer-director Jennifer Kent holds her cinematic cards rather closely to her vest, allowing the viewer to infer information rather than having it spelled out overtly.

The kid waking Amelia from her troubled rest is her son, Samuel (Noah Wiseman), a cute if somewhat odd looking little boy who is ensconced in that traditional childhood terror—a fear that a monster is in his bedroom. Amelia takes Sam back to his room and they undergo a search which (again, delivered through implication) seems to be something of a ritual for the pair. When Sam asks Amelia for a bedtime story to help settle his anxieties, Kent indulges in a bit of none too subtle delineation of just how disturbing many so-called “fairy tales” really are, especially if they’re on the Grimm Brothers end of the spectrum.

It soon becomes evident that Amelia and Sam are two walking wounded, though initially at least it seems that Sam is perhaps the worse of the two. Amelia manages to make it through her daily rounds as an attendant at a local retirement home, but Sam is having a hard time at school due to his seemingly unstoppable fear that he’s being stalked by a monster and his predilection toward creating defensive weapons to keep the boogie man away. In the meantime, Amelia makes a perhaps unwise decision one night to let Sam choose his own bedtime story, and he finds an odd looking tome that confounds Amelia, since she’s not sure where the book came from. That, of course, is the book of the film’s title, though it’s notable that it’s actually called Mister Babadook. Mister Babadook posits a really frightening specter who’s intent on “getting in,” and who it seems (at least in the book’s not exactly Pulitzer Prize level poetry) will make you wish you were dead if he does get in.

It probably goes without saying that Mister Babadook does indeed start tormenting Amelia and Sam—or does he? The Babadook plays with perception and paranoia, as well as whether a supernatural incursion is actually happening or is simply the figment of a fevered imagination (or two), in a way that is more than a bit reminscent of The Innocents (based on Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw). Is Amelia bonkers, projecting her grief over a devastating loss not only onto her helpless son but to an inchoate interloper from the beyond? Or is Sam the deluded one, a kid so beset by anxiety and remorse that he invents monsters as a coping mechanism? Or is something entirely more sinister, if decidedly less rationally explicable, actually happening?

To Kent’s immense credit, The Babadook manages to make “all of the above” the most probable “answer” to the film’s central quandary, and yet what’s most remarkable about this film is that ultimately it doesn’t matter what is happening, or even why. Whether or not the Babadook is a manifestation of the roiling, angst ridden psyches of mother and/or son is ultimately irrelevant. The Babadook is the “elephant in the room,” so to speak, and ultimately it doesn’t matter how it got there. As a symbol for the anchor like grief pulling Amelia and Sam down into the depths of despair, the Babadook is obviously incredibly redolent. But as a simple “monster under the bed,” the Babadook is just as redolent.

Kent perhaps makes a few missteps in the film’s closing moments. The Babadook, while bathed in shadows and never all that visible, is nonetheless more physically manifest here than in the rest of the film, which otherwise tends to deliver a surprising amount of shocks and scares with little more than oppressive knocking sounds flooding the soundtrack (this is one of the least gory horror films in recent memory). That element also plays out in the film’s perhaps needless coda, where the omnipresence of grief attains a symbolic presence in the “subconscious” of the Vannick household basement. A few too on the nose symbols, including a meal of worms (an obvious referent to mortality), may just slightly undercut an otherwise brilliant examination of the psychology of loss. Kübler-Ross aficionados may want to take note and schedule a viewing of The Babadook as part of their learning curve.

The Babadook Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Babadook is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This digitally shot feature has the splendid sharpness and detail that the Arri Alexa typically offers, though there are some perhaps inherent issues with black crush in several of the film's longish nighttime sequences. The fact that Mister Babadook is pretty much all black himself makes the minimalist suggestions that there's something going bump in the night a bit hard to discern at times, which may in fact have been part of Kent's intent. There's a rather refreshing lack of overt, aggressive color grading on display here, though that said there is a kind of slate gray appearance to many of the scenes taking place inside the Vannick home. Despite that approach, and the omnipresent darkness of much of the film, detail and fine detail remain top notch for the most part. Sharpness and clarity are also very good to excellent, and Kent's preference for extreme close-ups generates a lot of up close and personal visual information (see screenshot 1). There are no compression issues or problems with image instability to note in this review.

The Babadook Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Babadook offers one of the more creepily astute horror soundtracks in recent memory, one that is offered in both DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 on this Blu-ray release. Opt for the 5.1 track if you're able to, for it provides a wealth of beautifully rendered sound effects that are expertly placed throughout the surrounds. In fact I'd make the case that the film's soundtrack is actually subliminally providing at least as much of the fear factor The Babadook generates as anything that's overtly displayed on the screen. Looming "thumps" or "knocks" just invade the soundtrack with sometimes alarming velocity, providing startle responses with great regularity. Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and the film's effective score by Jed Kurzel also populates the surrounds quite nicely.

The Babadook Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Jennifer Kent's Short Film, Monster (1080i; 10:20)


• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2:57)


• Creating the Book with Illustrator Alex Juhasz (1080p; 3:53) is a brief visit with the guy who fabricated the book in the film.


• A Tour of the House Set (1080p; 6:47) is an interesting walk through of the film's main set, interspersed with stills showing how various rooms were utilized.


• The Stunts: Jumping the Stairs (1080p; 1:48) is rehearsal footage as the crew tries to work out some wire work.


• Special Effects: The Stabbing Scene (1080p; 1:30) is a kind of funny little piece showing how one of the film's more disturbing images was facilitated.


• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 2:55) provides glimpses of stuff like shots getting set up.


• Cast and Crew Interviews (1080p; 1:02:20) features actors Essie Davis, Daniel Henshall, Barbara West, Hayley McElhinney, director Jennifer Kent, costume designer Heather Wallace, producer Kristina Ceyton, and producer Kristian Moliere.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 4:49) is actually two trailers.

The Babadook Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

With labels like Scream Factory and Severin part of my regular reviewing duties, I watch a lot of horror films, and sad to say many if not most of them are cut from much the same cloth, leading to much the same unambitious results. The Babadook is an incredibly refreshing change of pace, a film that traffics not in jump cuts, blood and guts and the like, but a rather moving analysis of a dysfunctional family unit trying to come to terms with loss and grief. The Babadook is often very frightening, but it's an organic fear, not one ginned up out of hokey effects and booming LFE (OK, there is some booming LFE in the film, but you get my point). Davis is amazing in the lead, and Wiseman is generally quite effective as the little boy. Technical merits are very strong, the supplemental package is appealing, and The Babadook comes Highly recommended.